Eamon Grennan
| birth_place = Dublin, Ireland | death_date = | death_place = | nationality = Irish | field = Poetry | training = University College, Dublin Harvard | movement = | works = | patrons = | influenced by = Robert Frost, Elizabeth Bishop | influenced = | awards = }} Eamon Grennan (born 1941) is an Irish-born American poet Life Born in Dublin, Ireland, Grennan studied at University College, Dublin, where he met poets Derek Mahon and Eavan Boland. After graduating, he studied at Harvard University where he earned a Ph.D. He has lived in the United States, except for brief periods, since 1964. He returned to Ireland fairly briefly in 1977 and later in 1981, and began writing poetry there. His debut collection, Wildly for Days, was published in 1983. He began teaching at Vassar in 1974. He became the Dexter M. Ferry, Jr. Professor of English at Vassar College, a position he held until his retirement in 2004.Emon Grennan b. 1941, Poetry Foundation. Web, July 19, 2012. Writing Though his Irish roots are clear in his poetry, Grennan has an international sense of literary tradition. He has cited as influences American poets including Robert Frost and Elizabeth Bishop (herself an international poet with ties to the U.S., Canada, and Brazil). In addition to writing poetry, he has translated Giacomo Leopardi and — with his wife, Vassar classicist Rachel Kitzinger — Sophocles's Oedipus at Colonus. Gaelic poetry became an important influence, particularly, he has said, on the sound of his poems. At the same time, he is interested in the sentence as a poetic unit as well as a prose unit. In an interview with Timothy Cahill, Grennan said: :I have, it's a toothache quality, a kind of pain -- the ambition to make a sentence that is full, that has not gone limp, hasn't stopped while it still has some elasticity in it. Grennan's career has been long, productive and distinguished, and he has earned from fellow poets a reputation for lyrical skill and psychological intensity. Former U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins said of Grennan: :Few poets are as generous as Eamon Grennan in the sheer volume of delight his poems convey, and fewer still are as attentive to the marvels of the earth. To read him is to be led on a walk through the natural world of clover and cricket and, most of all, light, and to face with an open heart the complexity of being human. Recognition Billy Collins included 5 of Grennan's poems in his 2003 anthology, Poetry 180. Publications Poetry *''Wildly for Days.'' Dublin: Gallery Books, 1983. *''Twelve Poems.'' San Francisco: Occasional Works, 1988. *''What Light There Is, and other poems''. Dublin: Gallery, 1987; San Francisco: North Point Press, 1989. *''As If It Matters.'' St. Paul, MN: Graywolf, 1992. *''So It Goes: Poems.'' St. Paul, MN: Graywolf, 1995. *''Relations: New and selected poems.'' St. Paul, MN: Graywolf, 1998. *''Provincetown Sketches'' (with Michael Peich). West Chester, PA: Aralia Press, 2000. *''Selected & New Poems.'' Loughcrew, Co. Meath, Ireland: Gallery, 2000. *''Poems''. New York: Ars-Interpress, 2002. *''Still Life with Waterfall.'' St. Paul, MN: Graywolf, 2002. *''At a Turn in the Road''. Menlo Park, Ca: Occasional Works, 2002. *''In This World''. Philadelphia: Pointed Press, 2003. *''Renvyle, Winter''. Philadelphia: Pointed Press, 2003. *''The Quick of It.'' St. Paul, MN: Graywolf, 2005. *''Out of Breath.'' Oldcastle, Co. Meath, Ireland: Gallery, 2007. *''Matter of Fact.'' St. Paul, MN: Graywolf, 2008. *''Out of Sight: New and selected poems''. St. Paul, MN: Graywolf, 2010. *''But the Body: Oldcastle, Co. Meath, Ireland: Gallery, 2012. Non-fiction *''Facing the Music: Irish poetry in the twentieth century''. Omaha, NE: Creighton University Press, 1999. Translated *Giacomo Leopardi, Selected Poems. Dublin: Dedalus, 1995; Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press (Lockert Library of Poetry in Translation), 1997. **Sophocles, Oedipus at Colonus. (translated with Rachel Kitzinger). Oxford, 2004. Edited *''New Irish Writing: Essays in memory of Raymond J. Potter'' (edited with James D. Brophy). Boston: Twayne, 1988. Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.Search results = au:Eamon Grennan, WorldCat, OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc. Web, Aug. 31, 2014. See also *List of U.S. poets References External links ;Poems *Eamon Grennan at Poetry 180: "One Morning," "Song," "On a Cape May Warbler Who Flew Against My Window," "Cat Scat" *Eamon Grennan profile & 6 poems at the Academy of American Poets * Eamon Grennan b. 1941 at the Poetry Foundation *Eamon Grennan at PoemHunter (12 poems) ;Audio / video * Eamon Grennan at YouTube ;Books *Eamon Grennan at Amazon.com ;About *An interview with Eamon Grennan at the ''Kenyon Review, 2006 Category:1941 births Category:Living people Category:Irish poets Category:Harvard University alumni Category:Vassar College faculty Category:People from County Dublin Category:Irish writers Category:20th-century poets Category:English-language poets Category:American poets Category:Poets